WHEN I GET HOME, I’M met with pure silence. There are papers strewn about the dining room table—engineering blueprints my mom brings home from work—and a coffee-stained mug that for some reason she didn’t put in the sink. A photo of the whole family (me, my mom and dad, and my younger sister) sits atop a small table near the TV; it’s the only picture we posed for during our trip to João Pessoa. There’s a note from Mom underneath the frame that says she and Dad will be home late and asks me to make dinner for myself and my sister, who’s still at school.

Crying in front of that stranger was embarrassing, but at least it seems to have removed something bad from my system. I let out an exhausted breath, throw my backpack on a chair, open the fridge, and swig a drink of water straight from the bottle. I open the vegetable drawer and take out some broccoli, an eggplant, and an onion. From the shelf above it, I grab a package of unseasoned chicken cutlets. I open the pantry, pull out a bag of brown rice, and start boiling some water. I do it all automatically and wonder if that old saying—that food made with love tastes better—is true. If so, this dinner won’t be a very good one.

I don’t want to think about HIV, but the three letters dance relentlessly in front of me, reminding me there’s something inside my body that shouldn’t be there and that, little by little, is destroying me. It’s hard not to think about death when it’s running through your veins.

I cut the eggplant into thin slices and the broccoli into small florets, and when I start dicing the onion, the knife slips in my hand and digs into my fingertip, letting a small trickle of blood stain the vegetable red.

One look at the wound, and my stomach churns. Ignoring the burning sensation running up my hand, I drop the knife and grab a paper towel, pressing it against my finger as I watch my blood dissolve into the white layers of the half-chopped onion.

I pull a chair behind me and sit down, and my eyes start stinging—not because of the onion but from sadness.

Is this what my life is going to be like from now on? Taking care not to shed even a single drop of blood so others will never come into contact with this virus that lives inside me, killing me bit by bit? Is this what I am now, a walking HIV container, about to infect anyone who comes near me?

The tears running down my face are born of anger and frustration, because I know I can no longer ignore the fact that I’ve hurt myself. I can’t just go back in time to redo those nights when I didn’t use condoms and slept with guys I didn’t even know, whom I will never see again.

I’m disgusted by myself. Disgusted by my memories and the things I’ve done to get to this point. They say that when you’re diagnosed with HIV, it’s not supposed to be about guilt or blame or fault, but that’s all I feel right now. Guilt for being stupid, for allowing myself to get caught up in the heat of the moment, for having to carry inside me this thing that no one can remove.

I wait for my finger to stop bleeding, then throw the onion in the trash. I snatch the knife that cut me and toss it in the boiling water that was going to cook the rice, all the while knowing it’s irrational. I want to sterilize the knife, the onion, the cutting board—my own body. I want to drink this pot of boiling water so it can burn away the virus inside me, but I know that’s impossible.

It’s pointless to cry, but I can’t stop.

It’s useless to rehash these thoughts, but that’s all I can do.

It’s hopeless to think that my life won’t be different, because that’s exactly what it will be.

I wish it didn’t have to.

+

The following days are a mess, especially because I need to make excuses to justify my coming and going at unusual hours.

The dynamics at home are a little different from traditional families: Adriana, my mom, works extremely odd hours and has meetings left and right all over Rio de Janeiro and sleepless nights during which she draws, calculates, and revises plans for civil engineering briefs. Right now she’s working on three different blueprints, and the dark circles under her eyes are proof that she is way too tired. William, my dad, is more resistant to sleep deprivation and sleeps between four and five hours a night. He teaches math at three different schools in addition to being a math tutor on weekends to help make ends meet, which just barely affords us the overpriced luxury of living near the subway in Rio’s Botafogo district, in a tiny two-bedroom apartment. Vanessa, my sister, goes to school in the mornings and to a college prep course in the afternoons, and when she’s not out, she buries her face in her biology textbooks, committed to her dream of getting into medical school.

“Do you have class today?” my mom asks when she sees me at seven a.m., filling my backpack with things I won’t actually be using that day. It’s Thursday, and I don’t have class on Thursdays.

“I need to drop by school to finish a microeconomics assignment,” I whisper, stuffing the documents that need to be photocopied into a folder and tucking it into my backpack, along with my HIV test result that has Bus Stop Guy’s number scribbled on it and a book that I hope will help distract me in the waiting room.

“Okay,” she says, lost in her own calculations. I realize she’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes.

“Mom, did you get any sleep?”

“Sleep is for the weak.” She grabs her coffee mug and extends it toward me as if she’s toasting, then brings it to her mouth and takes a long gulp. “These plans had to be done two days ago.”

“You’re going to make yourself sick.”

She smiles and looks at me, noticing my expression. “Is everything okay, Ian?”

I try to disguise my dismay. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“You look awful. Did you spend the whole night bingeing Netflix again?”

The good news is that she gave me a pretty solid excuse herself.

“Yeah. There were just six episodes left in the season.”

“Just six episodes? Honestly, I would love to know where you find the patience.” She turns her attention back to the blueprints spread on the table. “I hope you get some sleep tonight for a change. Sleep is important, you know.”

“Sleep is for the weak,” I answer with a smile, opening the front door and walking to the elevator.

I wonder if it would be a good idea to tell my mom about my diagnosis. I mean, we have a healthy relationship, even if we’re not exactly confidants. She’s much easier to talk to than my dad, for instance, who hasn’t really accepted the fact that I’m gay and prefers to believe it’s just a matter of time until I get a girlfriend and that one of these days I’ll show up on the doorstep with the mother of his grandchildren.

I couldn’t sleep last night. I spent way too much time crying into my pillow, careful not to make any noise and wake Vanessa—which would have been hard, since she sleeps so heavily that not even her alarm clock on the loudest setting can wake her up in the morning.

When I finally stopped crying, I lay in bed wide-awake, letting the bad thoughts overcome me. What will the HIV take away from me? Will I be capable of being the same person I’ve always been, of taking risks, of falling in love, having a family, traveling, skydiving, studying abroad, drinking—of being happy? Or will my entire life be defined by this virus? Will this gray cloud that seems to overshadow everything last forever? Will I ever again be able to think that things can turn out all right and that life is worth living?

At the same time, I thought about Gabriel, my best friend. I still haven’t told him about my diagnosis. In fact, I haven’t told anybody about it except that guy at the bus stop. It’s not as if I have a lot of friends at school with whom I could have a conversation like this. People say I’m a little averse to friendship, and that might be true. I haven’t even replied to Gabriel’s last message—a simple “What’s up?”—as if, bizarrely, he already knew that things weren’t going well and that I needed someone to talk to.

I don’t know if I want to go through the process of calling him, telling him the truth, and enduring the silence from the other side, even if, somehow, I know that he’ll support me. I don’t want him to look at me differently, or to judge me, or to say anything that could hurt me even more, because I simply can’t handle that right now. But if I’m wrong, and he doesn’t support me, what can I expect from others?

When the sun came in through my bedroom curtains, the only conclusion I could come to was that I needed to get up and set things in order.

+

The nurse’s office is cold from the powerful air conditioner, and it doesn’t look anything like the shabby and claustrophobic office of the therapist who saw me two days ago. This place is airy and sterile, with a cabinet full of medicine locked behind glass, a bed covered in a hospital sheet, a scale, and a small table where a nurse is sitting.

Somehow, she makes me feel calmer. Maybe it’s her perfect smile or her neat hairdo, with not one single strand out of place. It may be the fact that she’s not even thirty, or it might be her immaculately white scrubs. Perhaps it’s her posture, both professional and welcoming, or even the simple fact that she does not seem inclined to treat me like I’m terminally ill.

“Did you bring copies of your documents?” she asks, and I hand them to her. Her skin is black, and her eyes are round and brown, watching as if trying to decipher me before I say a word.

The nurse unfolds the papers, checks to make sure everything is in order, and retrieves a piece of lined paper from a folder. She glues a passport photo in a square that’s meant to serve that specific purpose and jots down some basic information from my ID, and in the meantime, I remain silent. Her handwriting is curvy and careful, very different from the chicken scratch that doctors scrawl on their prescription pads.

When she’s done filling everything out, she looks up at me and smiles.

I smile back mechanically.

“So, Iago … before we start, I want you to know that this facility offers everything you need to ensure you receive proper treatment.”

“Ian,” I say under my breath.

“Sorry?”

“You called me Iago. My name is Ian.”

“Oh, of course!” Her smile widens pleasantly, and she seems a little embarrassed by her mistake. “I’m sorry about that. But you look like an Iago, you know? Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Actually, no.”

“Well, okay, Ian.” She offers her hand, and I shake it. “My name is Fernanda. How are you?”

“I’m okay …”

“Hard for someone to feel okay after receiving the kind of news you got. How are you really?”

“Scared,” I answer, trying to sum up all my feelings in one word. Maybe this is the only word that comes close to the real feeling.

“And that’s understandable. Here’s what I can tell you: From now on, you’ll need to take a few extra precautions and have some different routines from what you’re used to. But it’s no mystery. Brazil has one of the most effective HIV treatment programs in the world.”

I look at the medicine cabinet and notice a bunch of different containers with strange names.

“Are all of these part of the treatment?”

“Yes, but you won’t have to take all of them,” she answers. “Treatment for HIV has evolved a lot over the years, and all these medicines you see here are different options. What you need to understand, Iago, is that every body is different, and the virus manifests differently in each one; that’s why we have so many options. But most patients we treat use that one over there.” She points to a container that looks like a vitamin bottle. “We call it the three-in-one, which means it has three antiretroviral drugs in one single pill.”

I ignore the fact that she just got my name wrong again.

“One pill?” I ask. Whenever I’ve heard the expression cocktail therapy for HIV, I thought it would be at least a dozen pills at once.

“One pill, once a day, and that’s the end of it. That’s the basic, most common treatment, unless you experience any unexpected side effects. But that’s a conversation you’ll have with the doctor at Infectious Diseases when you get to meet her. The treatment is simple and very effective, and even though we’re still not very close to a proper cure, strictly speaking, it is still possible to lead a relatively normal daily life. If you follow the treatment, your life expectancy will be identical to that of someone who is HIV-negative. And I’ll also point out, Iago, that people living with HIV who take their medication consistently cannot transmit the virus to others.”

“Ian.”

“Sorry?”

“You called me Iago again. It’s Ian.”

“Oh my God!” She laughs and shakes her head, and I think it’s funny because I know she’s not doing it on purpose. Actually, I’m enjoying the conversation. “Forgive me. But, well, I think this is what you need to know. Do you have any questions”—she pauses for a split second, checks the file with my name, and enunciates emphatically—“Ian?”

“What’s that over there?”

I point to a poster with an infographic of a pregnant woman titled HIV AND PREGNANCY: IT’S POSSIBLE.

“Ah, so you want to be a father someday?” she asks.

“Uh … no. Unless I adopt a kid with my future husband.”

She smiles, and I feel a comfortable warmth in my chest, because it’s not a condescending smile nor one with a judgmental undertone.

“Well, if at any point you change your mind and decide to have a biological child, it’s entirely possible to have one with proper planning, without the baby contracting the virus through either the father’s semen or the mother’s bloodstream. In fact, the treatment is very effective, as long as it’s followed to the letter. Just like every other treatment we offer here.”

It’s not that I had been seriously thinking about having children, but this information somehow makes me a little happier.

“And how do I get the medication?” I ask, changing the subject.

Maybe this is my biggest fear, more than the idea of dying in the near future. I’m not thrilled at the idea of depending on public services, let alone the public health system. Everything I see on TV says that nothing works, that lines go on for miles, that medicine is lacking, and that people are always at the mercy of medical professionals who are often not that concerned with the well-being of others. But this conversation shows me that maybe the news isn’t always right about health care.

“As I said, everything is very effective.”

“How effective?” I ask skeptically.

“Look: Sometimes we might run out of medicine for hypertension at our pharmacy, but in my eight years working here, we’ve never run out of antiretroviral medication.”

“Not even once?”

“Not even once.”

That sounds like good news, at least.

“Any other questions?”

“Not for now, but I’m sure I’ll have more in the future.”

“I hope you do. Well, I think that’s it, then.” She hands me a paper with an exam request. “This is for blood exams so we can confirm the serology, to get your viral load count and level of CD4, which are your body’s defense cells. When you exit, just stop by the lab on the other side of the hall to have your blood drawn. Do you have a phone number where I can reach you?”

I give her my cell phone number because I don’t want any health-care professionals calling my home, only to have my mom pick up and start asking questions.

She writes down the number and then shows me another, a four-digit sequence in her perfectly round handwriting next to my picture.

“This is your medical record number,” she says, pointing at 6438. “You can use this number for anything that requires an ID here, particularly for the meds at the pharmacy.”

“And do I start taking those today?”

“Not yet. First you need to consult with the doctor and do a blood test to determine your CD4 levels and viral load count, so we can track the medication’s progress and its efficacy in your body. I see you’re having your consultation tomorrow, but I’ll go ahead and schedule the next visit for …” She opens up a yellow notebook and checks the calendar. “Does next week work for you? What time of day is best?”

“In the afternoon is best, if that’s okay.”

She nods and writes down an appointment for two o’clock, five days from now, which works well, because it means I don’t have to skip class or make up a bad excuse, since I can come straight from school and just say that I was at the library studying late.

“So that’s it.” Fernanda gets up and reaches out for a handshake. I grab my backpack from the floor and put it on. “The road ahead won’t be short, nor does it have a clear end, but believe me when I say your life can be as normal as anyone else’s. The difference is that, from now on, you’ll be required to have regular blood work done and take good care of yourself, which everyone should be doing anyway.”

“Right,” I say, shaking her hand and heading toward the door, feeling the hot air rush in when I open it. “Thank you for everything, Fernanda.”

“Take care, Iago,” she says with a smile.